


All things quiet and wild

by miss_Carrot



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, M/M, Religion, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:36:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_Carrot/pseuds/miss_Carrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Nine of Swords, the Hermit, reversed Seven of Wands. Nightmares, loneliness, and giving up.</i><br/><br/>They might be the Magician and the Greywaren, but when it came to saving the ones they held dear, they were just lost.<br/>(post-BLLB)</p>
            </blockquote>





	All things quiet and wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lucyinthesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucyinthesky/gifts).



> This fic is a belated birthday gift for [lucyinthesky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lucyinthesky/pseuds/lucyinthesky), who is the best, and who recommended these books to me, so it's all her fault, in a way. All the best to you again!
> 
> I would like to thank manarai for her constant support, Sadako for her super-helpful comments, and [sarasarai](http://sarasarai.tumblr.com) for great metas and comments regarding the Raven Cycle.
> 
> I think that the canon sources give us enough material to presume that Adam suffered from labyrinthine concussion during the events of _The Raven Boys_ , so I wanted to show in the story. I did my best to represent it accurately, but please feel welcome to point out any shortcomings here.

The interior of St. Agnes church was thrumming, positively vibrating with the noise of hundreds of small voices, yet Ronan’s footsteps still echoed loudly, like war drums. He walked, faster and faster, down the absurdly long aisle, looking for his pew, but it was nowhere to be seen. To his left and right he could see crumbling stones and fallen logs, smelling of mist and moss; the tall, narrow windows let in damp air, but almost no light. The congregation watched him with their round, bead-like eyes, murmuring disapprovingly deep in their feather throats, clattering relentlessly with their dark, steely beaks. Ronan closed his eyes, trying to call to his mind the smoothness of wooden pews, the well-known crackles in the stone floor, the soft colours of picture of St. Agnes in the side chapel, but when he looked around again, there was still grass under his feet, and the birdlike creatures were towering over him like collapsing walls.

Anger was building inside him, quick and white-hot. The nightmares had no right to defile a holy place like this, even in his mind. His hands curled in fists before he even thought about it, ready to punch just as the nightmares were ready to peck him in the eyes. The clattering noise rose, repellently similar to the church bells at the beginning of the service, and Ronan paused mid-strike, mere inches away from the nightmare’s pointed beak. It would have cut his hand in two.

“Miserere mei,” he whispered, bowing his head reverently, and trying to ignore the misty smell of Cabeswater filling his lungs.

Suddenly all the voices stopped and Ronan looked up at the altar. Matthew stood there with his back at the cross, smiling warmly in his golden glory. It should have calmed him, but a wave of nauseating panic hit him instead.

“Matthew!” he called, and after a heartbeat dashed down the aisle. But then the nightmares flew up noiselessly and lunged down at the altar. The church filled with the sound of pecking and tearing of flesh, and Ronan’s footsteps, and Ronan’s cries. Just before he could hit them and crush them, the nightmares rose in the air like huge birds of prey, their wings black like silk and razor-sharp at the edges, and flew through the windows, up high among the trees.

Reeling on weak legs, Ronan made a few steps and fell on his knees by his brother’s body. He wanted to cradle it and weep like in thousands of his other nightmares, but when he reached to it, he couldn’t. Matthew was lying there, under the altar, torn in half but with his beatific smile intact, and he was empty. There was no blood, there was no inside. There was no Matthew but the smiling shell.

Ronan woke up stiff and gasping for breath, with his heart constricting, as if he had just dived in ice-cold water.

The sky was greying on the edges when he left Monmouth, hands steady on the wheel but with his insides shaking. Yet he didn’t pause or slow down until he was in front of the door to St. Agnes. They were solid to touch, old wood and rusty metal, and creaked familiarly under his push. The darkness which encompassed him was familiar too, filled with the scent of burned wax instead of mist and moss. Groping around, he found his way to the nearest pew and knelt down, eyes fixed at the yellow glow of the tabernacle lamp, and he asked for mercy once again.

*

Cabeswater was calling him.

Adam sat up on his mattress and regretted it instantly, as nausea hit him hard and room started to spin. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe regularly, waiting for the dizziness to pass. It was going to be a shitty day, he had not the slightest doubts about it, and Cabeswater’s pulling would make it even worse. With his ear giving him hell, he wouldn’t be able to bow his head to scry, he wouldn’t be able to move around swiftly enough to work at the assembly line. He might not be able to get up without puking. Since Persephone’s death things were getting worse again.

As slowly as possible, grabbing at the wall for support, he stood up and gave his body a moment to adjust. It was going to be better – it would have to, he couldn’t afford skipping his shift or preparation for Monday’s maths test. He would have to find out what Cabeswater wanted this time and probably relocate some stones to make it happy. He had work to do, places to be, he couldn’t afford to wait idly till the world stopped spinning, he had said the doctor who had been explaining his condition to him, insisting on hospitalisation. With that attitude you’ll never get any better, the doctor had said, and Adam had shrugged and paid for it with severe headache. He was probably paying for it now too.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the grey BMW, parked askew the gravel lot of St. Agnes church. His stomach lurched and his hand clenched on the wall again in anticipation of heavy footsteps and urgent knocking. He didn’t have it in him today to bear with the supernatural disasters Lynch would no doubt bring with him. Or rather, Adam didn’t want Ronan to see him so feeble that he couldn’t even stand straight without effort.

He strained himself to listen for a long while, but there were no footsteps to be heard.

The next minutes dragged like centuries, when he got dressed and gathered his things with as much urgency and as little movement as possible. Before he pulled the door open, he glanced at the parking lot; the grey BMW stood there, sharp in the early morning light, and Adam didn’t want to examine the mingle of relief and frustration the sight caused him today. He had to go seventeen steps down without swaying or falling and talk to Ronan Lynch. With such a challenge at hand any distractions had to be avoided at all costs.

The church was cold, dim, and so empty that Adam’s breathing seemed to echo through it like bells. For a moment he couldn’t see Ronan, and when he did, he almost didn’t recognise him. He didn’t look like a praying person, or a person at all. Rather Adam saw something more like a gargoyle perched on the pew, with its body twisted and its mug covered with its claws; a picture of despair in all its ugliness. Everything he might have wanted to say disappeared from his head; all he could think of was whether the gargoyle would unfold into Ronan if he touched its pale shoulder. He didn’t check it though. Instead he slid into a pew and fixed his eyes in the writhen figure before him, waiting.

“Parrish.”

He didn’t fall asleep – he _didn’t_ – but he didn’t see Ronan wake from his numbness either. Now he was standing in front of him, human again but not yet fully himself. There were lines in his face, shadows in his eyes which Adam never noticed before, as if they were washed up to the surface by the grey morning light. They spoke of despair, of helplessness, of fear – of all the things Ronan Lynch never showed to anyone, not even to himself. Not for the first time in his presence Adam felt both deeply humbled and ridiculously inadequate.

“I need you to go to the Barns with me today.”

He didn’t think about Monday’s math test, but he couldn’t not think about his shift today. He hoped Ronan would understand, even though he himself couldn’t, sometimes.

“In the afternoon,” Adam said with a nod that set the church into wild spin. He swayed but grabbed the pew for support, waiting for it to pass. When he looked up again, Ronan stood in the same spot with his right hand raised slightly, as if he wanted to stabilise Adam but stopped himself mid-gesture. The foreign lines in his face didn’t disappear, but started to harden in the familiar sharp defiance, Ronan-Lynch-against-the-world.

Since Persephone’s death things were getting worse.

*

“I went out to buy some orange juice,” was all Gansey said when Ronan entered Monmouth. The casualness was betrayed by the look of relief on his face and the relaxed drop of his shoulders. Only now Ronan remembered that the Pig wasn’t in its usual place in the parking lot when he went to the church. “Noah told me that you were very distraught when you left.”

He wanted to inform Gansey in a few words what he thought about Noah’s spying, but the shades under Gansey wire-rimmed eyes gave him a pause. He must have been up all night, fighting his own insomnia, his unfulfilled love, and Blue’s grief; and then he was up all morning, worrying if Ronan comes back home unscratched. A few months ago he would have dismissed Gansey’s concerns as unnecessary and unwanted.

“Nightmares,” he said instead, matching the fake casualty. “No bodies to bury this time, I needed to clear my head though.”

“Not a word more, I beg of you” Gansey shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This way I won’t be able to testify against you when the time comes.”

“I was praying in the fucking church.”

There was a soft _oh_ , which sounded dangerously like something preceding an apology. Not willing to risk it, Ronan turned on his heel and marched to his bedroom, shutting the door with a small thud.

“ _Kerah!_ ”

Chainsaw clearly worried about him too, if her nervous cawing and pecking at his head were anything to judge by. He petted her absent-mindedly and reclined on his bed, staring at cracks in the concrete ceiling. With another caw Chainsaw perched up on his forearm and tugged at his bracelet. Usually her presence was comforting, grounding; today it only reminded him of the nightmares back there in the church.

He didn’t want to think about that, but his mind kept returning to Matthew. It was Saturday, so he would be in his math coaching session soon, and then playing basketball with those shithead friends of his. There was a match approaching, Matthew kept babbling about it each time they met, urging Ronan to come and watch. He wasn’t very good at basketball, but he was part of the team nevertheless.

Ronan caught himself staring at the pile of junk on his desk, under which his phone was tucked, and considering calling Matthew up. With a curse he sat up and hit his knee, but it didn’t alleviate his need to smash something even by a little bit. Chainsaw flew up with an outraged cry and circled above his head. Ronan watched her fly and felt his anger and fear mingle and rise with each bat of her wings. Thanks to a touch of fate each night he could do something impossible, something as beautiful as Chainsaw, and yet. Yet all his creations were nothing but shells filled with his pride, weren’t they.

“Nail clippings,” he hissed under his breath, shaking head to clear it from the sound of nightmares tearing his brother apart, but to no avail. He didn’t manage it in the quietness of St. Agnes, so he wouldn’t be able to do it here, in a room full of dreamed-up objects. “He’s not a fucking nail clipping!”

“Ronan, I need your help right now.”

Ronan didn’t even register the temperature drop which accompanied Noah’s appearance. Chainsaw did, though; she greeted it with an affronted screech and hid on Ronan’s shoulder. The ghost-boy was hanging in the door, even though it was closed; he seemed slightly soft at the edges, and the agitation on his face made the smudge on his cheek less prominent than usual.

“Get out, you damn snitch.” There was no fire in it though, and Noah knew it well. He made an urging gesture with his pale hands, and Ronan flipped a bird in his general direction, but after a moment he gave up. “What?”

“There is a chipmunk under our porch,” Noah announced in the tone other people reserved for things like _We are expecting a baby_. “It should be hibernating, but it’s awake and confused.”

“Leave it be,” Ronan suggested, wondering despite himself where the chipmunk actually was. Monmouth Manufacturing had a number of conveniences, but a porch wasn’t one of them. “And get out of my room.”

“But it’s _confused_!” Noah’s shrill made Chainsaw caw and Ronan shudder. “I don’t think it has a burrow here, I looked for it but couldn’t find anything. We must help it and it may freeze if I touch it!”

With a sigh Ronan got up, doing his best to focus on the chipmunk drama. For a moment he wondered what would Cabeswater do if he’d asked it for nuts for the creature – and whether eating them would make it a dream creature too, in a sense. He thought of Adam, of the foreign glint which was in his eyes sometimes, making him more Magician and less human. He thought of Matthew and stopped himself before his mind went back to St. Agnes.

“Lead the way,” he said to Noah instead.

*

Out of all trying things he went through today, the drive to the Barns was the worst. Adam was tired after his shift, dizziness and headache wouldn’t leave him, and even though he didn’t eat anything since morning, he felt motion-sick. Probably he should ask Ronan to pull over, but it would require an explanation and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. And besides, there was still something off about Ronan.

He shook his head minutely, out of habit, but regretted it instantly. The spinning in his head became unbearable, as if there wasn’t up and down anymore, just him tumbling through a void. _I am steady_ , he forced himself think, as if the tumbling was happening outside of him, as if he just watched someone else whirl. _I am steady_.

“What is wrong with you, Parrish?”

It took him a moment to get a hold of himself and when he did, he realised that they had indeed pulled over. And also that he was bracing himself on the dashboard, his hands white and sweaty with the effort, and that he was panting shallowly, and that Ronan was watching him as if he’d been an ugly but also morbidly fascinating insect.

“You were going to puke in my car.”

“No, I –”

“Your face is fucking green.”

Adam touched his cheeks with his clammy hands, as if he could make the colour out of it. And maybe he could; when he closed his eyes, he felt as if he had been touching a leathery, greenish mask. As if he had been unperturbed underneath. _I am steady_.

“I’m fine,” he lied with eyes fixed on the dashboard. “I’m not going to throw up, Lynch, so stop hovering over me and drive.”

There was a pause, and Ronan still watched him closely, somewhat angrily. There was something foreign creeping into his face again, and Adam couldn’t but remember the gargoyle in the church.

“We could go back and come to the Barns another day,” he said averting his eyes finally. It wasn’t a lie, but at the same time it was; Ronan had these things mastered to perfection. Whatever had happened to him this morning – and Adam still had no idea what it had been – rendered him into something he never wanted to see again.

“I’m fine,” he repeated, closing his eyes. The world around him still seemed to swim at the edges, but that was something he could cope with. “Let’s go.”

He was fine enough to make it to the Barns, even though his palms kept sweating and he had to keep his eyes closed. When they stopped, he had to sit for a while before getting out; Ronan waited for him, but didn’t offer any help. Now that they were there, Ronan started to move with unsettling urgency. When he took Adam here with him before, he was eager, but never like this. It didn’t feel like he had something to show, but rather like he was running from something. It was no less foreign than the gargoyle in the morning.

They didn’t go to cows this time, but to the room where Ronan’s dreaming nest was. Adam expected to be shown some new impossible objects, but instead Ronan dragged another chair into the small space and motioned at him to sit.

“I want you to explain to me how you communicate with Cabeswater,” Ronan said, perching on the armchair. Adam blinked, unsure if he hadn’t misheard or misunderstood, but Ronan just made an impatient gesture. “How do you make it do things for you.”

Any other day Adam would laugh, but today he couldn’t – his head would break in two, or worse, he’d vomit onto Ronan Lynch shoes. He dragged a palm over his face instead, trying to block the absurdity of the outside world. How did _he_ make Cabeswater do things, asked Ronan fucking Lynch who pulled dreams out of a dream like it was nothing.

“I don’t,” he said finally, taking the hand away. Ronan was staring at him, which at the point wasn’t anything new itself, but the feeling of wrongness of all this wouldn’t go away. He seemed irritated and curious at the same time, as if Adam had been withholding something from him and he wondered where it was hidden. Which, in fact, wasn’t that far from the truth, Adam realised with a shiver going down his spine. “I really don’t – it’s the other way round. I am the one doing things for it,” he said quickly, forcing himself not to avert his eyes.

“It saved you at the school yard.” Ronan’s hands twitched and clenched into fists and his voice rose with anger. But this was more than his usual rage; there was a hint of desperation Adam never heard before today’s morning. “You didn’t go there and bring a shield with you – what did you do?”

“Nothing, I didn’t even think of–” A sudden realisation made him gasp. He actually thought of Cabeswater back then, of branches above his head, just as he was thinking of wandering through brambles when his father came to St. Agnes to see him. So Cabeswater was not only invading his thoughts, it was reading them too. As unpleasant as this recognition was, it wasn’t really surprising. “I thought of it, just of Cabeswater, not even of hiding,” he admitted finally. “But nothing more. It kind of – acted on its own.”

If he hoped that his answer would satisfy Ronan, he was mistaken. If anything, it seemed to make him even more unnerved. “It never acts on its own for me.”

“Can’t you just ask for what you need?”

“No, I fucking can’t! I can’t bring back things which I can’t imagine, can’t understand.” He drew his knees up and embraced them, folding into a gargoyle again. “All I bring here are cheap copies and pieces of shiny crap. I can’t make anything real.” He started to press his leg against the armrest of the chair; it must have hurt him. Again Adam wanted to touch Ronan’s arm, to make him wake up from his weird state of despair. He balled his hand in a fist to prevent himself from doing something stupid though. “I am the Greywaren, but Cabeswater gives all the real shit to you, as it fucking pleases. Why?”

“Maybe because I sold my soul to it,” Adam said bitterly, and it was true. Of course Cabeswater would protect its Magician, it needed him at its beck and call. Ronan’s head snapped up at that, though, his eyes wide and his mouth parted in a quiet gasp.

“What did you – do you think Cabeswater can have a soul? Or can it – can it hold one? Copy it somehow?”

“I have no idea.” It seemed that his retort worked better than his touch would; Ronan dropped his feet to the floor and leaned towards Adam. A wild grin was spreading on his face, consuming it like a wildfire. The overwhelming feeling of relief on this sight surprised even Adam.

“Ask it then,” Ronan said, reclining back on the armchair and closing his eyes. _Ask it_ , Adam thought with a sigh, as if it was the most natural thing to do, the easiest thing. Well, if someone was about to create a soul, maybe talking to a magical forest was indeed not something to worry about. “But do it quietly, Parrish, I need to go to sleep.”

Despite himself – he was beginning to feel comfortable and steady in this chair – Adam rose from his seat and left the room. He wouldn’t be able to keep himself from staring otherwise, as if he expected some of the extraordinary things happening in Ronan’s head would manifest outside. This time averting his eyes wasn’t as difficult as the last time though; now he actually wanted to keep his distance, to think what the sudden urgency in Ronan’s action meant. He probably knew the answer though. All these questions about bringing back something real, about creating a soul, about protection – what else could it be?

Ronan must have figured out, too, that Gansey was going to die.

Unlike Adam though, he wasn’t just counting on someone’s favour to bring him back. No, Ronan was going to save Gansey himself, or to claw his soul back to his body if need be. Of course, why wouldn’t he. He was the Greywaren, he didn’t have to wait for someone else’s good grace to get something.

Slowly, as steadily as he could, he lowered himself to sit on a chest full of dream junk and reached to his bag for Persephone’s tarot cards. He used to bind them with a rubber, but after she died he bought a phone cover to keep them in. It was purple with colourful embroidery and some sequins sewn on top, and somehow he was sure she would like it.

 _Ask it_ , Ronan demanded, and Adam considered his question for Cabeswater for a long while. It would talk to him, he felt the pressure under his skin, but he had to ask it right. What was Ronan planning to do? The cards were cool to the touch and somewhat unpleasant, as a frog’s skin would be. He knocked on them and shuffled them, and touched them to his heart as Persephone taught him, and with his eyes closed he forced himself to think of the outside.

“Inpetraveritne Ronan?”, he whispered, laying three top cards in front of him without looking at them. It didn’t mean so much what his plans were as whether he was going to succeed, did it?

Nine of Swords, the Hermit, reversed Seven of Wands. Nightmares, loneliness, and giving up.

For several moments Adam looked at the cards, taking in the pained faces, dark figures, and doom hanging over their heads. Then in one angry, dizzying motion swept them back to the pile, as if it could change anything. He considered drawing the fourth card, but the deck suddenly felt strangely cold and foreign, and he couldn’t shake off the notion that the last card drawn would be Death itself. So he nudged the door slightly ajar with his foot and peeked at Ronan instead.

He wasn’t sure what he hoped for, but Ronan didn’t constitute a reassuring picture. His palms were balled into fists and hugged closely to his chest, and his mouth was parted in shallow breaths, just as the poor man’s on the Seven of Wands. Adam looked at him, waiting for a clue that something is going to change, like he himself did change into the Magician, but there was none. Instead, he saw Ronan waking up with a gasp, and with a warm, white light glowing from beneath his tightened fingers. When he opened his palms, it flew up like a huge glow worm, and hung over his head like the Hermit’s lantern.

“To Hell with all that,” Ronan whispered, hiding his hands in his palms, and Adam forbade himself to think of the Nine of Swords. But well, the thing was, he couldn’t agree more.

*

Matthew was nowhere to be seen. Unusual as it was, Ronan fidgeted in his seat and looked around, ignoring irritated looks and _tsk_ s coming from Declan. The constant hum of the whispered conversation around him made him think of the nightmare and he couldn’t shake off the fear that something bad would happen this very moment. It didn’t though; Matthew slid in the pew just as the bells announced the beginning of the service. Throughout the whole Mass he sported the widest, brightest smile Ronan ever saw, and seemed positively abuzz with excitement, which earned him a meaningful cough of Declan and an eye-roll from Noah who appeared in the pew around the first reading.

All the time, Ronan watched him closely: his hands making the sign of the cross, his eyes focused on the altar, his mouth praying and accepting the host. There was no change whatsoever, and yet Ronan coldness welling inside him, as if he had just watched a grievous sacrilege. Maybe he did. God help him, maybe he even committed it himself.

“You’ll never guess what happened, pal!” Matthew exclaimed the very moment when they left the church. He all but jumped in place and his brotherly handshake – a complicated sequence of pats, claps, bumps, tapping of fingers, and half-aborted gestures – was much less eager than usual. “Oh, you will envy me, you will!”

Everything was normal, barring for Matthew’s excitation – but even this wasn’t so unusual, he tended to get overeager about the simplest of things. And yet the fear was there, hovering over Ronan like a swarm of crows. He forced himself to shrug and ask casually, even though he felt more like smashing something. Unfortunately, Declan was keeping unusually quiet.

“Father Michael agreed that I sing _Ag Críost an Síol_ during the preparation of the gifts in two weeks! All by myself! Isn’t it great!?”

“Hey, that’s awesome!” Ronan clapped him on the shoulder, thinking of the times gone and forgot when he would get excited about something like this, too. It was the Mass for the intentions of Matthew’s birthday, of course he would do such a thing. “You’ll do great.”

“Do you really think so? Can I come to you to practice sometime?”

The fake innocence was so strong that it made Declan snort in an ungentlemanly way. Matthew’s attempts to make Ronan return to singing were as fruitless as they were persistent.

“Sure, you can come whenever.”

Still buzzing with happiness, Matthew shouted some good-byes and ran away; Ronan looked after him until he realised Declan did the same, and then averted his eyes.

“Don’t drag him around with these weirdoes of yours.” Still watching Matthew’s tiny figure, Declan crossed his eyes, attempting his posture of the intimidating older brother. Now it was Ronan’s turn to snort, which made Declan hiss and bristle. “I am serious, Ronan. You think I don’t know what you’re up to, running with these psychics and witches all the time? What will it be now, neo-pagan rebel phase? Don’t you have an ounce of care about your – your soul, for Lord’s sake!?”

“Do you ask yourself this question when you pick up a new girl to screw?”

Declan’s sharp inhale sounded exactly like the hiss of a boiling kettle. Ronan didn’t even bother to hide his smile. If he could just place his fist on this self-righteous face, red with indignation, and break Declan’s nose again, the day would be perfect. But they were still on the church grounds and, unlike some, Ronan still had a basic sense of decency.

“We’re not having…!”

“Exactly, we’re not.” And then he smiled even broader, showing Declan all his teeth. “I’m seeing Parrish right now.”

Declan called after him a few times but ceased it when Ronan reached the door leading to Adam’s place. He didn’t plan to come here, not really – he should go to the Barns and dream as much as he could, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea after all. But his skin was buzzing and his mind was spinning, and probably all he would be able to dream were hornets. Besides, yesterday Adam looked like shit, pale and green and wobbly, and while he didn’t ask for any help and Ronan didn’t offer, checking up on him was just a reasonable thing to do.

He paused a few steps from Adam’s door, pondering on the last thought until he made sure it wasn’t a lie.

“Do you plan to come in eventually?” Of course Adam was there, looking at him; in the sharp light he looked as if he were chiselled from tan sandstone. Before he could stop himself, Ronan wondered if he was as rough to the touch. He moved towards Adam, who stepped aside but still eyed him with unnervingly unimpressed face. “I have no idea what you came here for, but I’m having none of it.”

“Come for a ride,” he replied as if he hadn’t heard a word. “To Cabeswater. I need–”

“No.” And there it was, the frown, the angry twitch of mouth, the impatient gesture of crossing arms. Ronan could feel his own brows knotting and his palms balling up, as if he was a distorted mirror. “I’m staying, we have a math test tomorrow and I need to study. I’m serious, Lynch.”

“Screw it, man, it’s not like you haven’t memorized the whole book already.”

There was no reply to that, just a shrug and a pointed look, as if Adam was saying, _I would but I couldn’t and you know why_. Something in Ronan snapped at that, and he kicked the doorframe before he ever thought about it. His foot throbbed, which was good, but not good enough.

“Fuck you, then,” he hissed, turning out on his heel. It was unbearable how much like Declan it sounded.

“Lynch.” He was in the middle of the stairs when Adam’s voice reached him. He stopped but didn’t look back, and the step creaked under the weight of his anger. “You must know – you don’t need me with you.”

He didn’t grace it with an answer; he run down the stairs, got into the car and drove out of the parking lot in a fountain of gravel. The crunch and screech were good, but not enough either; he needed to hurl something, to yell, to hit something until his knuckles were raw and hurting.

In the very last moment he stopped on the red light, waiting for some damned pedestrians to cross the street. The steering wheel creaked under the pressure of his fingers. His knuckles were white and his palms sweaty, just like Adam’s were yesterday. He thought of them now, of their sick paleness, of the minute tremors which came, as Ronan knew, from merciless inner fight. He went up there to casually check if Adam was all right, and then–

Well, fuck that, he decided, turning the car towards the Barns with a screech of tires as soon as the lights became yellow.

*

“I don’t want to meddle, but I’m afraid I must ask you – has something transpired between you and Ronan?”

With a sigh Adam tore his eyes open and looked in Gansey’s worried face. It was hard to look at him now, when he knew the truth – it was almost impossible not to think about his lifeless body fallen at his feet, impossible not to be paralysed by fear. Blue, Adam decided, was probably the bravest person he knew.

“Nothing has transpired,” he said, keeping his voice as free of mocking tone as humanly possible. If the small frown Gansey was now sporting was anything to judge by, he didn’t succeed much, though. “We didn’t fight if that’s what you’re asking about. It’s just…” he paused, seeing the new Latin teacher striding into class with a stack of books under her arm. Against all odds he was hoping that Ronan would come at least to Latin, now as Greenmantle was away. “It’s just Ronan being Ronan,” he whispered with a minute shrug and focused his gaze on the new teacher, trying to ignore Gansey’s eyes trained on the back of his head.

 _And just me being me_ , he didn’t add, but it was also true. He didn’t lie to Gansey – he and Ronan hadn’t fought, not really; usually when they did, Ronan was being calm and relatively civil, and Adam was angry. This time it was the other way round, which meant it wasn’t a fight. Yet it wasn’t their normal either, even given the normalcy levels for Ronan Lynch. But then, with the magic awakened and the prophecies uttered, could there be anything normal anymore? They were a lost cause, Adam decided with a frown, but forbade himself on dwelling on this sentence any further.

His hand mechanically registered the lecture in form of neat notes, while his mind wandered, pondering over Gansey’s question. Gansey probably just wanted to know if they had argued, but his choice of words made Adam think of something more – of the day in the Barns, of the visit in Greenmantle’s house, of the nightmares in the church. Did something transpire between him and Ronan indeed? He inhaled deeply, feeling his skin buzzing; the smell of moss and moist tree bark filled his lungs. Suddenly his head was full of nervous whispers asking after the Greywaren. _Later_ , he promised Cabeswater, forcing himself to focus on the genus passivum. Yet once evoked, the nervous shiver of Cabeswater wouldn’t go away; it resonated through Adam’s body so that all he could think of, despite his best efforts, was a free moment to meditate and free himself from the pull. It was unnerving how a single though about Ronan made Cabeswater so agitated.

“Adam, do you think you could spare me a few minutes?” It was impossible how sheepish Gansey looked. He probably couldn’t repeat a word from the Latin class either. “You see, I have this feeling – is there anything you’re keeping away from me, you and Ronan?”

 _You won’t be able to unknow it_ , Blue had said. The images of the pool of blood and the writhen body bloomed behind his eyelids as if they had been branded there.

“Does it have anything to do with Cabeswater? Is it reacting to the awakening of the third sleeper?” The shift in Gansey’s features made Adam marvel, as always, how many Ganseys were held in this single body and how they could be pulled out at will. At this moment he was Gansey-the-best-friend, radiating concern and guilt, and Adam had no idea how to react to that. It always seemed undeserved. “Look, I understand that I don’t wield any magic, and after – after what happened with Persephone you aren’t too keen to entrust me with–”

“Gansey, for the love of–”

“But if there is anything I can do, anything at all, just tell me, will you?”

The insistence of the request made Adam’s stomach tie itself in a painful knot. For a brief moment he wondered what would Gansey do if he asked him to stop looking for Glendower, this very moment, and if that would save him.

“I promise,” he lied, thinking of the vision Cabeswater had shown him, and of the despair in Ronan’s face. “Magic or not, we won’t go anything without you. You started all this, after all.”

Gansey wore his concerned, guilt-ridden expression even as they parted their ways after the break. At this moment it seemed a favour too big to grant – too big to ask either – to save his life, as if it couldn’t be done even with the magic of the mythical king. And maybe it couldn’t, Adam thought, his mind recurring to Ronan’s folded figure in the pew lit by sunrise. There was not only fear and despair in his eyes back then – there was guilt as well, he was sure of it now.

 _What makes you think you kill him?_ Persephone had asked back then on the porch, and Adam hadn’t understood, but now he did. Somehow, they were in this together, Ronan and him. Gansey’s best friends, the ones whom he trusted even though they were becoming wilder and more foreign with each day, were going to be the cause of his death. Was it due to Cabeswater’s influence or their own weakness, Adam couldn’t say; yet, if Gansey was to be saved, they had to do it together, too.

*

“Whoa, did Godzilla go on rampage through the city?” Matthew inspected the demolished, still not fully rebuilt model of Henrietta, and then curled his fingers to imitate claws and stomped in place. “Rawr, raawrrr!”

“Two of them, actually,” Gansey said, and crouched by the model to adjust one of the houses. Ronan couldn’t see the eagerness in his moves which used to be there when he built the model for the first time. “But I am working on this.”

“Tell him not to stomp like that,” Noah hissed at the same time, appearing just behind Ronan’s shoulder. “He’ll scare Alvin!”

“Who’s Alvin?” Matthew didn’t even raise his head from the model. After all this time he still wasn’t able to really see Noah, even though he noticed him on some level. Noah didn’t take it very kindly. “Is it the chipmunk? Can I see it?”

“Later,” Ronan promised, ignoring both Noah’s heated _Don’t you dare disturb my chipmunk!_ and Gansey’s indignant _It’s Alwyn, Al-wyn, that’s a Welsh name!_ “Come up and show me what you’ve got, pal.”

Matthew was positively vibrating. There used to be a time when Ronan would be as excited too; he remembered that singing was important, but not really how it felt like, being so eager to perform. As he watched Matthew steady himself and sing, eyes closed and hands balled, as he listened to his voice, wavering slightly sometimes, he couldn’t suppress a small smile. Matthew might not have even the half of Ronan’s musical talent, but he had three times as much dedication.

If someone like this didn’t deserve redemption, Ronan decided, sitting up with a sudden rush of anger, no one did. Chainsaw, who slept through the whole rehearsal, suddenly jumped and cawed aloud and startled Matthew, who squeaked off-tune and clasped his palm to his mouth in horror.

“Oh gosh, was it so bad?” he mumbled, blushing wildly. Chainsaw cawed like mad and circled above his head.

“No, until this last yelp it was actually quite fine,” said Noah with air of a decadent art critic, waving his hand impatiently. Ronan shoved him right in the ear, pretending to stretch himself. Matthew shot him a confused look.

“It was all right, but it needs some polishing. I know you can do even better,” he assured, standing up and pushing Noah once again. “Now come and see Alvin. You can feed him if he’s awake.”

“Over my dead body,” Noah grumbled and Ronan let out a loud and nasty cackle.

The chipmunk was awake, and to Matthew’s delight it accepted the nuts he placed on the ground and hid it somewhere in its burrow. It didn’t mind Ronan at all, recognising him as the main nut donor, and quickly got used to Matthew; Noah was completely ignored, but it didn’t make him any less excited each time Alvin ( _It’s Alwyn guys! Are you doing this on purpose?_ ) emerged from under the stairs and ventured into Monmouth.

“It’s just like mice in the Barns,” Matthew sighed delightedly on his way out. He waved at Gansey and smiled awkwardly at Noah, who stuck out his tongue in return. “Do you think we can have some nuts planted when we move back there? Maybe chipmunks will come there then.”

“Sure thing,” Ronan promised, walking him out. Nut trees were not a problem, but animals didn’t like dreamt-up creatures for some reason; he’d have to pull the chipmunks from Cabeswater probably. “Train hard, and we see each other on Thursday for another rehearsal.”

When he got back, Gansey was nowhere to be seen, but his low voice came from behind the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room door, which meant that he was talking with Blue. After the whole debacle with the cave they didn’t even keep their chats to the night hours and Gansey, bless his soul, was still convinced that it was kept under the corner. For a split second he thought of Adam, of his watchful, concerned eyes and the frown on his fine-boned face. Would whispering Ronan’s secrets into his ear in the middle of the night make living with them more bearable? Shaking his head, he went up, closed the door of his room behind him, and glanced around with a soft curse. For a moment he forgot himself, but the piles of dreamt-up junk, unnecessary and forgot, made him snap back to reality.

 _They are like your nail clippings_ , the witch had said about the dream objects, _they thrive on the energy of dreams_. He had protested, even though he’d had a hundred pieces of evidence that she had been right – he had protested, and his first thoughts were for Chainsaw, too lively and bright and dear to become a motionless memory. Even after Declan spat out the truth about Matthew during the most cruel of fights they had ever been into, all that occupied him was how to prevent Matthew from following their mother into the eternal slumber. Not for a moment he paused to consider the rest of what Calla had said that day.

The dream objects, they had no soul.

“Miserere mei,” he whispered as he had back then in the dream-church, hiding his face in his hands. For the first time since he found Niall Lynch dead on the driveway he was willing to bargain with God, _take me, condemn me instead_ , but this time he knew that his prayers would not be answered. He had nothing to give in return, for he was the one who sinned with vanity, and who was going to be condemned anyway. “There must be something I can give!”

“You’re brooding here again, aren’t you.” Noah’s face appeared out of thin air, already with a condescending grimace plastered to it. He settled himself on Ronan’s desk and poked at Chainsaw who snapped her beak at him lazily. “You promised me a drive around.”

“Next time you mock my brother, your glitter snow globes go through the window just after you,” Ronan warned from behind his palms. “And get out of here, for fuck’s sake, have you never heard of knocking?”

“Each time I knock, you just shout _Sod off, nobody’s here_ ,” Noah said with a shrug.

“Exactly, and that’s what you should do.”

“You are being unreasonable about all this.” Suddenly Noah’s voice became serious and his figure much more tangible; the temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Ronan didn’t like this. It reminded it about the time a few months ago when he learnt about Noah’s bones lying on the ley line, and the overpowering need to hit things, throw things, kick things until his hands bled and his body became sore. Noah appeared in his room back then too, and told him he was being unreasonable. But he wasn’t, he just – wasn’t. “Eternal things aren’t a black-and-white matter. There’s more than one way to be dead, and there must be more than one way to have a soul.”

“How would you know,” Ronan said, straightening up. He wasn’t surprised at all that Noah knew what he was thinking about. He had time to get used to that, he figured, even though it was still disturbing sometimes. “You started to care about your soul only after you died.”

With a swing of his left leg, Noah asked, “Does it really matter, before or after? Isn’t it the final result that counts?”

“Doesn’t it? It’s not like you can fix anything now, can you. You’re dead and that’s all what’s left.” Gesturing up and down, Ronan could feel his mouth twist in an ugly grimace. Noah’s face fell, and he blurred slightly on the edges. “It’s just a pretence, and it’s not what I want for Matthew, I – he deserves much more. The real thing.”

Temperature in the room dropped suddenly, and Noah started to shiver and jump in place, like the screen in old TV sets. He grimaced at Ronan too, a foreign expression which made the smudge on his cheek even more prominent.

“You don’t know shit!” Noah yelled, blinked, and disappeared, knocking several items from Ronan’s desk in the process. Chainsaw screeched and run away to her cage; there was a reprimanding shout of _Ronan!_ from the ground floor, and the room felt silent.

Maybe Noah was right – maybe he didn’t know shit – in fact, he most probably didn’t. But for fuck’s sake, he was the Greywaren and he wasn’t going to let facts stop him.

*

Adam felt two sensations almost simultaneously: the air became humid, saturated with the smell of moss and leaves, and the ground beneath his feet stopped swaying. Cabeswater worked like that; sometimes he hated how safe and well he felt in there. There wasn’t much time to enjoy himself though; Cabeswater woke him again, demanding its Magician’s urgent assistance. Since Persephone’s death it became both more insistent and more vague – despite his best efforts Adam couldn’t see the stones to be moved and paths to be cleared in the messages he received. And now, instead of showing him something, scrying brought him here, to the forest. In which, as he soon realised, he wasn’t alone.

In the clearing between the trees, Ronan was conjuring wonders. There weren’t other words for this, as what he was doing didn’t resemble anything earthly and usual. If Adam had to say what it was, he would say – grace, or maybe benevolence, or regret, but above all he would say that it was alive, dizzyingly so. It didn’t have a material form and it didn’t shine, and yet he had to squint and shield his eyes. Then he could almost see a shape, a silhouette of a human being.

“Vultis impedire?” he asked the trees, closing his eyes as if it could shield him from guilt. They didn’t reply – not that Adam expected them to say a word against the Greywaren, though – but he knew that he had to react somehow. Whatever it was that Ronan was working on, it was draining Cabeswater more than anything they had done so far. It was allowed, given freely even, but it was exhausting nevertheless.

The moss and fallen branches were crunching under his feet, but Ronan didn’t seem to notice, just as he ignored the rustle of the leaves up above his head. He turned only after Adam called his name, startled and unsure but not scared. The creation behind him didn’t waver either, even though Adam wished it so. Its presence made him unsteady.

Ronan raised his hand, as if he wanted to grab Adam’s shoulder or tug his hair, but he paused mid-movement, as if lack of response made him suspicious. “Quid vultis?” he asked. Adam shook his head, enjoying how the gesture wasn’t accompanied by dizziness.

“I am not a dream,” he replied in English. Something in Ronan’s face tensed and he let down his hand, curling it into a fist. “Cabeswater let me in. It’s worried about what you are doing in here.”

“I’m not going to stop.” Crossing his arms on his chest, Ronan stepped to the side, shielding his creation. He didn’t seem to do it consciously, but there was something dangerous in his stance. He was the Greywaren in the midst of his dream forest, after all.

“You are draining it,” Adam protested, crossing his arms too. “It allows you, of course. But at this rate, it will disappear beyond any restoration, and soon.” _And I have only two hands_ , he thought. Loneliness hit him again with might of a crashing wave; without Persephone, there was no one whom he could trust with this. “You can’t go on like this.”

“I can’t stop now, no such fucking chance. There must be a way of fixing it,” Ronan said, and then his eyes went wide with surprise. Adam turned and saw a narrow path which wasn’t there before, a clump of trees and ferns, and a small stream disappearing under their roots, forming a muddy marsh.

“There is.” Adam did his best to stifle the pang of jealousy; he asked for this vision for days, and yet Cabeswater showed it to Ronan just so, without any effort. And then, because it seemed only right, he added, “You can help if you know how to use a shovel.”

Ronan laughed and took a step back, right in his creation which exploded in a cloud of tiny sparks, glowing like a bike of hornets. Adam didn’t dare blink, to keep this in front of his eyes as long as possible. “Wouldn’t pin you for having a farmer boy kink, Parrish,” he said and disappeared. Cabeswater seemed to sigh, but whether with relief or regret, Adam couldn’t say.

The sparks hung in the air, silent, murmuring, and violently yellow. Suddenly Adam remembered the body in the church. _Sometimes I dream of wasps_ , Ronan had said once. He closed his eyes, and when he opened it, the sink full of tinfoil swam in front of him as it usually did. There were tiny reflexes of yellow light in the water, but Adam blinked them away.

Laying back on his mattress, he tried to chase the visions from Cabeswater away and catch at least few more hours of sleep, but to no avail. He couldn’t get the presence Ronan created out of his head; even though he knew it wasn’t so, in his memories it seemed now to look exactly like Gansey, golden and good, and still imperfect. This thought made him sit up slowly, grope for his desk lamp, and pull out Persephone’s cards out of their pouch. They seemed cool and heavy, as if made from thin sheets of stone; he shuffled them as usual, but it didn’t warm them up, and neither did holding them in his hand.

“Will he succeed?” he whispered, closing his eyes and thinking of Ronan in the woods. And yet he saw a silhouette of Gansey, crawling gold with wasps, under his eyelids instead.

Nine of Swords, the Hermit, reversed Seven of Wands. He wasn’t even surprised.

*

“It isn’t real,” Ronan said, averting his eyes and turning his head. “It’s a fucking nightmare, and I’m not even asleep.”

“Come on, Lynch, I really don’t have the whole day.”

“There is no way I am riding anywhere in this pile of junk,” he announced. Truly, there wasn’t. It didn’t matter so terribly that the Hondayota was ugly – and it was the ugliest, least graceful vehicle Ronan ever saw, and the paint was peeling off of the passenger door – or that it stunk like rancid gasoline. The problem was that if he rode that forsaken thing with Adam, he might dream it up someday. It would become too real to resist the temptation.

“Fine then,” Adam said and the Hondayota moved backwards with a low grumble.

“Hey! Parrish, don’t be a shithead! Can’t we get a normal car?”

“No,” Adam yelled back, leaning from the opened window, but he didn’t offer any further explanation. With a loud swear Ronan closed the distance to the car in a few long strides; Adam nudged the passenger door open and Ronan closed them with more force that was strictly necessary. “I don’t know precisely where we are going,” Adam said after a moment, turning and joining the traffic. He seemed absolutely focused on driving, eyes fixed on the way. “I know the general direction, and Cabeswater will guide me when we get closer.”

“We could still have taken the BMW,” Ronan grumbled, brushing his fingers against the inner panel of the passenger door; it was warm and slightly plastic under his touch. There was a cheap yellow pen in the pocket. In his dream it was smoother, less personal; he took the pen, rolled it between his fingers, and put away.

“Yeah, no. I think we should keep instructions like ‘aww, now up and a little bit to the left’ exclusively to backscratching.”

“I see our afternoon schedule is filled to the brim, Parrish.”

Adam didn’t reply to that, concentrating on the road again. A part of Ronan wanted him to rise to the bait, to say something which he could counter with affront and swearwords. A part of him which wasn’t ready for this yet focused on the tiny white scar on Adam’s right forefinger, and the sinews showing on his forearms each time he had to turn the wheel. It wasn’t any different from any other time, when he watched Adam’s palms, or back of his neck, or the curve of his shins, as if he had to memorize them before someone catches him and he’d have to avert his eyes. But this time Ronan couldn’t shake off the feeling that Adam knew, and let him. It made him feel exposed, angry and weirdly happy at the same time. He really wanted Adam to say something which he could curse at.

They drove off the main lane and by a group of small, run-down houses. The road under their wheels became uneven, then sandy, and then it was only two ruts in yellowed grass. Judging from the thumps at the chassis, it was actually a good thing that the BMW stayed at home; not that Ronan was to admit it to anyone ever.

“That’s it.” With a wheeze, the Hondayota came to a halt; now there was only a path among some trees in front of them, not unlike what the Cabeswater showed them yesterday. Ronan pushed his door open, noticing the soft creak of the hinges, but Adam didn’t move, as if he steeled himself for the venture into the outside. He did that more often recently, and it reminded Ronan of the first days after he had left the trailer – the unsure feet, grimaces of pain, slow turns of the head towards the source of the noise. Not for the first time he wondered whether he would dare dream of the inside of Adam’s head to heal that.

“Take the tools out of the boot,” Adam called, clambering out of the car. The boot door jumped open; inside there were a shovel, a rake, and an empty plastic bucket. He handed the bucket to Adam and kept the rest, which earned him a scowl. He just shrugged and walked along the path, not too quickly, but without looking back either. All casual.

The clump over the stream wasn’t far away, but it was an exhausting trek nevertheless; his boots foundered in mud, and he could hear Adam struggling just behind him.

“It’s here,” he finally said, to Ronan’s relief. Indeed, the surroundings looked vaguely familiar, and the mud was even worse here. “We need to clear out the bed of the stream and make it flow again, see?” He reached for the shovel, but Ronan handed him the rake instead, and dug into the soggy soil tentatively. It was full of roots and weeds, heavy, and hard to work with. He adjusted his grip and dug again.

“Cabeswater makes you maintain ditches? Shit, that wood’s a harsh mistress, man.”

“That, or hurling boulders around.” Adam raked the piled soil away, and leaned against the handle as if he had been listening to something. “It clears the energy channels, or at least I think so. Keeps Cabeswater strong, anyway.”

Shovelling the wet dirt wasn’t an easy task, so Ronan didn’t reply straightaway. “Is it a frequent thing?” he finally huffed, after pulling out a pretty stubborn sapling.

“It depends,” Adam said with a shrug and closed his eyes. _On how much stuff you are pulling out_ , he didn’t add, but Ronan heard it nevertheless. “Usually I can manage.” He controlled his face well, but there was still a small grimace, giving him away. Ronan wanted to yell at him, shake him to sit down and don’t move, but he shovelled aggressively instead, throwing the mud far behind him. “I can take the shovel now, you know. It’s just a few yards left, it’s okay.”

“Is it, Parrish?” And there it was – Adam’s mouth tightened in a thin line, his frown deepened into a scowl. Ronan leaned on his shovel, looking straight at him.

“I can manage,” he repeated, clutching at the rake so that his knuckles went white.

“Don’t be dense, I’m not saying you can’t. Just next time I pull something for shits and giggles, and you have to dig a ditch around the whole county…”

“It’s part of the sacrifice,” Adam said looking away, voice tense from contained anger. He must have touched his cheek because there was mud smudged just below his eye, like a bruise. Ronan’s fingers twitched to wipe it away. “I agreed to be Cabeswater’s hands and eyes, and that’s what it needs of me.”

“Do you have to be such a martyr about this too? I could have helped you months ago if you just had said a word.” He dug in the dirt as if it had offended him personally. Who knows how many times Adam was wandering around on his lone quest of re-arranging the landscape of Henrietta, swaying on his feet from exhaustion and vertigo. Fucking dirt. Fucking lone wolf Parrish.

“I am telling you now.” There was a new tone to Adam’s voice, and Ronan recognised a peace offering when he heard one.

“Now is a bit late, man.”

“Then shut up, and give me this damn shovel!” He was looking straight at Ronan, arms crossed and the rake hugged tightly to his chest. Suddenly Ronan realised that, until now, Adam wasn’t alone with his task. There was the white-haired witch. Persephone. “I know it’s hard to grasp, but not everything is about you and your delicate sensibilities, Lynch.”

“Fuck you,” he spat, and got back to work, thinking of the costs of the cheap imitation of Matthew’s soul.

Adam didn’t say anything else, not even when they finished and the stream started to trickle between the trees. They loaded tools to the boot and drove away on reverse. Ronan watched the thin layer of dried-off mud covering Adam’s palms and forearms, and risked a glance in the rear view mirror to see if the smudge was still there. It was; but it turned out that Adam was watching him, too.

He could have looked away. He didn’t.

“You have a–” he paused, and waved at his own face. “On your right cheek.” Adam slowed down and rubbed at his face, smearing the smudge away. Then he looked in the mirror again with a minute smirk, brows up, as if asking for approval. “Now now, look at you, cute as a fucking button, Parrish,” Ronan said evenly, all casual.

“And you’re subtle as the Death Star, man,” Adam replied. All casual.

Somewhere along the way he poked at the tape deck, and Ronan recognised the _Shitbox Sing-along_ , started from mid-track. The low tones filled the car with a rhythmic thrumming, like a heartbeat of a giant. Ronan could have looked in the rear view mirror; he was fairly sure he’d meet Adam’s eyes there. He turned his head to stare in the window instead. He might not be able to hide a smile.

*

Ronan drove them to the Barns early in the Saturday morning, among the yellowing hills and dark brown fields. The tunes coming from his player were not unlike the ones on his tape, but quicker, more urgent; Adam closed his eyes and enjoyed the beat and the low undertone. The crisp autumn air was hitting his forehead and eyes, and he felt strangely present – all of Adam Parrish gathered in one tiny, thrumming space. It could be like this from now on, he realised, if he only allowed that.

Much to his surprise, this time they went towards the main house instead of the barns. Adam had been there before, but he couldn’t stop looking around nervously. Even though he was invited here, it still felt like an intrusion, like peering into someone else’s head and spying on their dreams. He paused for a moment to consider why he never thought about Ronan’s dreams this way. Was it because they were shown to him willingly? He went up the stairs, and followed Ronan through wide oak floor decorated with a carved triquetra.

The room Adam entered was beautiful in a way which tugged at his insides the same way all of the Barns did. It was spacious and sunny, with just the right amount of mess and clutter to feel comfy, but enough space to focus and work on something, too. There were basketball posters and piles of books, and a wooden train set displayed on the top shelf, and a framed picture of a guardian angel in a blue robe hanging just above the bed. Adam couldn’t dream up such a room even if he tried; the thought made him angry and jealous even more than the room itself did. Even if – when, he corrected himself – he fulfilled his plans and created a life for himself, he wouldn’t have this.

“It’s Matthew’s,” Ronan said suddenly, with his back at him. He was facing a large window and holding a book in his hands. It wasn’t necessary to explain it, though. The room practically screamed goodness and positivity. Of course, dream boys would have dreamy rooms.

“It’s very like him.” He wasn’t sure why he said it – it was obvious for anyone who knew Matthew. But then Ronan turned to him and there was something so wild and hopeful in his eyes that instead of embarrassed, Adam felt a little happy.

“Yeah? How is it, then – or wait, don’t tell me, tell Cabeswater. Like you did back then with the Greenmantle’s phone.”

“What?” Adam blinked several times, as if clearing his eyes would help him understand Ronan better. “What do you want me to show Cabeswater?”

“Matthew,” Ronan said with a nod towards the angel over the bed, as if he didn’t understand why Adam was asking. “I tried to dream a soul as I understand it, you saw it yesterday. But it doesn’t work like that, it must be like him to work, I think – and it’s better if we think of him together, it gives a fuller picture. What is it, Parrish? Hey!”

“Matthew,” Adam repeated almost soundlessly. Ronan’s words washed over him like a wave and retreated, leaving him stunned. His thoughts were drowned in the sound of constant lapping – of blood or water, or maybe more words – and he struggled to gather them as if he tried to catch tiny fish with his bare hands. “The soul, the – it is all about Matthew, then?”

“Who else would it be?” Ronan paused, nervously looking for something in Adam’s face. He must have found it, because suddenly all colour was drained from his face; his eyes looked like two holes burned in a sheet. He was staring at Adam as if he was to break into irreparable pieces any moment, or as if he was to tear Adam in these pieces himself. “Who else?” he demanded, and yet took a step back to shield himself from the truth.

 _You won’t be able to unknow it_ , Blue had said.

“For Lord’s sake, Adam!”

“Gansey,” he heard himself whisper, even though he wasn’t sure he actually opened his mouth. It felt like a curse, said aloud like this. “It’s Gansey. I hoped you can save him from me.”

For a long while Ronan didn’t say anything, didn’t even move. Instead, he seemed to become more and more distant with every breath he took. Adam watched his eyes go wide, his mouth tremble with unsaid words, and he watched it from afar, as if it didn’t relate to him at all. As if the curses Ronan was about to utter and his violent rage were aimed at someone else entirely.

“He’s on the witches’ list, isn’t he,” he said, voice shaky. “I don’t believe it, I don’t–”

Something inside of Adam explained, as steady as if he had been discussing math homework, “Cabeswater showed it to me.” And then, when there was no reply, words tumbled out of his mouth unbidden. “I saw it in the tree back when we first went there. I don’t know how, but it’s going to be me, I’m going to – I’m going to ask for his life as a favour, when we find Glendower, I’m–”

“You knew, all this time.” The way Ronan said it made Adam sick, but at the same time he noted with painful accuracy that his face seemed discoloured at all, that his throat was working as if he was swallowing the truth of it. “And you wouldn’t say a word.”

“I didn’t _know_! I didn’t – no, let me explain!”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Parrish!” He turned swiftly, like a snake indeed, and hit the desk so hard that the wood creaked. The book he had held so reverently fell down; Adam’s body recoiled while Adam observed that the book was old, well-worn songbook. Ronan didn’t turn back, and his shoulders were shaking. “Get out of here,” he said, his voice so calm that it almost froze the air in the room.

The worse, smaller part of Adam which always explained, always worked to avoid the next strike, made him say “I’d never do that to him.” Ronan didn’t look back at him, but he stilled, as if ready to jump.

“Get out.”

And Adam did – accompanied by a series of dull thumps he stumbled down the stairs and left the house. He didn’t even spare a look at the BMW when he was crossing the yard and going out on the road, leaving the Barns behind him. But in fact he was even further away – his feet were hitting the asphalt and his body did its best to keep the balance, but the real Adam was prowling Cabeswater. The rustle of the leaves there was soothing, to the point that he almost forgot why he retreated there, almost let go of the horrified look on Ronan’s face.

“Hey, kid! You all right?”

The voice – so unexpected in the quietness of Cabeswater – startled him and he came back to himself with a gasp. He was standing on the verge of a highway, in the middle of nowhere; there was a car parked near him, and a brown-skinned woman in her thirties was leaning against it, watching him closely. A basset hound was sitting at her legs, watching him as well. The scrutiny, the noise of the cars passing by, the dull ache in his feet, it all attacked him all of a sudden and made him squirm. The woman was saying something, but he couldn’t make out a single word.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, closing his eyes to keep some of the surroundings away. The smell of leaves and moss was there, inviting, but he forced himself to look at the woman again. “Could you please repeat? I’m – I’m deaf to one ear, I couldn’t quite understand.”

“I said that you look like something bad happened, and if you are going to Henrietta or somewhere along the way, you can come with.” She opened the back door of the car and the basset jumped in. Adam just realised that there was a little girl inside, watching him with the same dark slanting eyes as her mother did.

“I – that’s very kind of you, ma’am. But I don’t have any money.” He winced at how pitiful it sounded, but it was true. All he had at him were his home keys and Persephone’s cards, cold and heavy in his pocket even through their cover.

“I figured, you wouldn’t be hanging about here otherwise. Jump in, kid – Lisa, make some place for our guest.”

Adam didn’t remember much of the journey home; he retreated to the woods again, keeping himself only conscious enough to thank the woman for the ride. His body worked in mechanical movements when he went up to his room, and then to the garage; his hands were steady and his gaze focused, even though afterwards he couldn’t name a single thing he worked on. Cabeswater wouldn’t show him the cave, and he counted it as a small mercy.

When he made it back home, Ronan was sitting on the stairs, looking as if someone had just died.

Adam felt as if he hurled down from a mountain and crashed into his body, suddenly painfully present. He was aware of Ronan’s heavy breathing, of his bloodied knuckles, of his dark-circled eyes trained on him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up at him.

“You’re fine,” Ronan rasped; he sounded as if he was yelling curses at the sky for the whole day. “What the hell were you thinking!”

After a heartbeat Adam found his voice, and the strength to move a few steps up “You told me to get out.”

“For fuck’s sake, not like that!” Their heads were now at the same level, and Adam couldn’t avoid looking at Ronan any further. “Never like that,” Ronan said, quieter, and it was his turn to look away. There wasn’t anything Adam could reply to that which wouldn’t be a lie, or a half-truth; _we’re such a lost cause_ , he thought again.

“I can’t handle it – not now, not today,” he said instead. Ronan bristled, but Adam didn’t allow any protests. “Come up tomorrow after church, if you want.”

“Fine.” With that Ronan rose from the stairs, passed him brushing Adam’s shoulder only slightly, and went down without looking back.

*

The grass under his feet was dry, crunching and turning to ash as he stepped on it. The trees seemed scorched too – there were dark marks of soot on his hands where he touched the charred bark. The further he went, the worse it looked; after a few steps, all he could see were scorched earth and burnt stumps of trees. It looked as if Cabeswater abandoned this place, taking all life with it, and only its carcass was left behind. It felt like Hell.

“Quid tibi accidit?” Ronan asked in a quiet, strained voice. There was no answer though, not even a rustle among the remains of the branches. The woods was deafeningly silent, as if it had been listening to something. It took Ronan a while to realise that, indeed, a pained cry sounded from afar.

He started to run before he even fully realised that it was Matthew’s scream.

The scorched trees stood in his way, their branches fragile yet able to catch him and hold him, and scratch his skin, but he finally saw a fleck of angry yellow light. The scream was coming from it in waves, as did heat, and Ronan felt his eyes water. He didn’t stop running though, not when Matthew was burning, burning in front of his eyes, and Ronan knew there will be nothing left of him, nothing left to save.

“Take me instead!” he yelled, and with a moment of hesitation lasting less than a heartbeat, he jumped into the flames. Pain hit him and took his breath away, and he couldn’t reach Matthew, couldn’t drag him out of the fire, couldn’t save him. Even crying for help was impossible, as all voice evaporated from his throat. Suddenly, Matthew opened his eyes and they were alive, pleading; it made Ronan find a scrap of strength in him and throw himself at Matthew to shield him from the flames.

Yet when he circled his hands around his brother’s body, there was nothing for him to hold. Ash stained his hands and face, but there was nothing else apart from the flames biting at his skin. The crackle they were making hurt him as much as their heat did; it got louder and higher, relentless as buzzing, and with a pang of dread Ronan realised that it wasn’t fire he was encircled in. He was kneeling in a swarm of hornets.

In any other nightmare he would be dying from their bites by now, but this time they only hovered over him and buzzed loudly. He blinked several times to free his eyes from their legs and wings, and tried to move.

“Gansey!”

It was Adam’s voice, full of utter trepidation; Ronan never heard him as scared as he sounded now. He moved in the voice’s direction, but the hornets formed a swarm so thick that he could barely see anything. Adam cried out again, and Ronan forced his way through the buzzing cloud. The hornets’ stings left thousands of tiny cuts as he went, but none of them held the poison. All of it was for Gansey, Ronan understood.

With a scream he saw Gansey at last; thousands of moving insects covered his body a golden, shimmering cape of a king. His face was white with fear, and his trembling lips were moving imploringly, yet Ronan could not make a word over the humming of the numberless wings, and Adam’s desperate calls.

“Where are you?! Help me!” he shouted, wading through the swarm, but Adam was nowhere to be seen. Somewhere in the back of his head he understood that there was no way to free Gansey of hornets, that even he couldn’t dream of one, but he didn’t stop. An eternity it took him to reach Gansey, and when he finally was there, he didn’t know what to do. “Auxiliabitur ei,” he begged the trees, but they weren’t here either. Tell me what to do, he thought, though he didn’t know with whom he was pleading. There wasn’t any answer though, and he felt the familiar rush of anger hitting his veins.

A single hornet flew from over Ronan’s head and landed on Gansey’s lips and stayed there; with a shaky breath Gansey closed his eyes and let out a quiet, wild whimper of terror. Ronan reached to move the hornet away, his hands trembling and his fingers numb, and then he saw another one, sitting in the hollow of Gansey’s throat, plunge its sting where the sound was coming from. Ronan grabbed it, pulled away, but it was too late; Gansey collapsed at his feet without a sound, his whimper gone without an echo. The hornets rose as a cloud of golden dust and then fell heavily on the ground and Gansey’s body. Yet when Ronan looked down, there was no body and no hornets, but a pool of clear, shimmering water. From beneath it came soft glow, and when he peeked down, he saw warm light, as if a star had been drowned in the depths.

Kneeling down, he bowed towards the water, careful not to touch its surface. He couldn’t see anything in it beside the light, not even his own reflection. Unsure of what to do, he looked into the depths, hypnotised with the light. For a brief moment he wanted to dive in, but the pond was so strange in the scorched forest that he couldn’t bring himself to move.

“Just tell me what to do!” he demanded, balling his hands into fists. The dead hornet which he forgot he was holding got crushed in his palm; its sting sunk deeply just above his line of life. With a gasp he felt his body going numb from the poison and falling towards the pond.

He woke up with a cry before he hit the bottom, with a dead hornet in his hand and his face covered in ash and soot.

*

To Adam’s surprise, Ronan actually came to see him after church. “Come for a ride,” he said as soon as the door opened. Adam just nodded; he could see the benefits of not looking at each other’s faces.

They made it out of Henrietta, heading south, when Ronan finally asked, “Tell me about Gansey. But don’t fucking try to lie to me, Parrish.”

“I saw him dead in the cave in Cabeswater. It showed me that I killed him – Blue saw it too.” He took a deep breath, shook his head minutely as if it could help with ringing in his ear. “I hoped I could keep from – from killing him, but he is on the death list. I guessed it and Blue confirmed. I would never do this,” he added after a while. Ronan swore under his breath.

“What makes you think you kill him?”

Adam’s throat suddenly went dry, and the memories of his last talk with Persephone rushed in like a flood wave. He covered his face with his palms, wet with cold sweat.

“Cabeswater,” he whispered, and then, even quieter, “I don’t know. But I will ask for his life as the favour from Glendower.”

“Bullshit,” Ronan retorted. Now, as he was thinking about it, it was obvious how Persephone had seemed to think the same. As if she had known that somewhere, somewhen he wouldn’t be able to make this call. But then Ronan swerved of the highway into an empty road leading towards Cabeswater, and said in the sudden silence, “You don’t need any magical rotting motherfucker to do your job, man.”

Adam laughed at that, a short, bitter sound. The swerve made him lightheaded and unsure about the directions of the world around him; left became up became right became down for a little while, and when they settled, there was no way of checking if they were truthful now. “I couldn’t do such a thing,” he said, shaking his head. It didn’t restore the order as he wished it to. “I’m not you, I can’t.”

“I told you not to lie to me.” The branches of the Cabeswater’s trees locked above them, and the car came to a halt. Ronan got out, but this time he waited for Adam, arms crossed, mouth twisted in a grimace. He didn’t turn and walk away when Adam stumbled out of the car either. “You are the Magician, you wield the power of the ley line. There is not a single goddamn thing you cannot do,” he said instead, tilting his chin up in a challenge.

Adam wanted to protest, but there, with the Cabeswater’s glorious presence ebbing and flowing against him, through him, he couldn’t find one thing to say to the contrary which wouldn’t be a lie.

A savage grin splinted Ronan’s face. “Ostende nobis spelunca nunc,” he told the trees and walked towards the nearest clearing without a hint of hesitation. Adam followed, still dizzy, but suddenly sure of the directions around him, and of the path beneath his feet. They reached the pool, with the rotten oak looming over it like a nightmare. Ronan stopped, and looked at Adam’s expectantly.

“I am not going in there,” Adam declared, suppressing a shiver.

Squatting and staring at his pale reflection in the water, as if he looked for something at the bottom of the pond, Ronan asked, “What did you see there?”

“What do you think I saw?” Adam scoffed, looking at his eyes in the water.

“Lies.” There was no uncertainty in Ronan’s voice nor in his face when he rose and looked directly at Adam, as if he could reach to his very core. _It’s fear_ , he understood suddenly, as if Persephone’s voice had whispered it into his ear. _Fear makes you think you kill him_.

There was no hesitation in Ronan either when he stated evenly, “I am not going to mourn him.”

 _If they die, I die, too_ , Ronan had shouted at Cabeswater, Adam realised with a startle, and Ronan never lied. The vision from his last meeting with Persephone flickered in his mind and faded away. He walked away from the pool, Ronan following him after a heartbeat.

“Tell me about Matthew,” Adam asked when their strides became even, “but tell me everything.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Ronan retorted, and Adam could feel him tense by his shoulder. “I dreamed him up, but I’m not the fucking God to create a soul for him.”

Something tugged at Adam’s heart as soon as he heard it; for a moment he thought it was pity or guilt, or compassion, but it was something else entirely. “I want to help you,” he replied quietly, “but I am not what you need.”

Ronan cursed under his breath and fell silent, as if he had used all the words he had in him.

It was a lie, Adam realised, feeling his heart flutter and his hands shiver, and his vision blur at the edges.

 _It was a lie_ , he repeated to himself, looking at Ronan, as if he had seen him for the first time. And in a way, maybe he had, because the world around him came to sharp, almost painful focus. Adam Parrish was the Magician of Cabeswater, wielding the power to change the world around him, and he would not lie to himself to hide from it.

The leaves over their heads whispered quietly when he strode through Cabeswater, steady and sure like never before.

*

It was clear that Matthew practiced a lot; his voice didn’t falter anymore, and he didn’t have to close his eyes to shield himself from his nervousness. He sang as if he believed each word of the hymn without any hesitation.

Ronan could barely listen to him.

“So, how was it?” Ducking his head, Matthew looked up at him and smiled sheepishly.

“Good,” Ronan replied with a smile no one but Matthew ever witnessed.

“Not bad, kid,” Noah said from the corner. He hadn’t appeared in Ronan’s room since their last fight. Come to think of it, he hadn’t appeared in front of Ronan at all. Now he cast a quick glance around and looked as if he was going to disappear, but Matthew squinted in his general direction and suddenly smiled wider.

“Oh, do you really think so?”

“Yeah,” they responded at the same time. Ronan glanced at Noah who shrugged and disappeared, but his presence lingered still, as if he didn’t in fact leave the room. “We can rehearse it for the last time on Sunday before church, and then you’ll do great.”

“Cool, thanks pal! I couldn’t do it without you!” Ronan wanted to protest, but Matthew strode to the door and flung it open, grinning broadly. “I must go, we’re doing an ecology project with the guys and I have all the photos. See you, bye Chainsaw! And say hi to Alvin from me when he wakes,” he added and stomped down the stairs, shouting his goodbyes towards the chipmunk’s burrow. Ronan watched him go, turned back to his room, and dropped heavily on his bed. Chainsaw cawed at him from where she was tugging fiercely at a loose wire from one of his unused speakers.

“Sod of, nobody’s here,” he said mildly, closing his eyes. When he opened them back, Noah was straddling his chair, looking vaguely annoyed.

“I’m fed up with you and your hysterics, you shithead,” he declared, blurring slightly around the edges.

Instead of replying, Ronan reached under his bed and tossed the thing he found there at Noah’s head. It flew through, hit the wall, and rolled down the desk. Chainsaw screeched and hid behind the speaker. Gasping loudly, Ronan laughed and laughed, and Noah suddenly became very visible and solid, and livid.

“It’s for you,” Ronan finally managed, gesturing towards the missile. Noah picked it up, rolling it slowly between his hands, and then raised it to his eye. The shadow it casted made the smudge on his cheek more prominent than usual.

“It’s magic,” Noah whispered after a while, enraptured.

“It’s just a kaleidoscope. It isn’t even real,” Ronan added, because it was true. He dreamed it up some time ago; in his dream it showed colours he hadn’t known ever existed. He wondered if Noah could see them now, outside of a dream, if he had no eyes to limit him.

“It’s real enough for me.” With a toothy glee, Noah looked through the kaleidoscope at Ronan, and rolled it slowly. “Whoa, you are all yellowish pink now! You look rather cute!”

Flipping a bird in his general direction, Ronan reclined on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He could hear the Pig parking outside. Suddenly he saw Adam’s face in front of him, when he had told him the truth about Gansey, and the swarm of hornets from his nightmare. With a quiet curse he sat up. Noah was watching him closely, rolling the kaleidoscope between his palms.

“When Gansey dies, do you die too?” he heard himself asking.

Noah frowned at him, but he wasn’t surprised by the question in the slightest. Ronan would get angry about it if it was anyone else but Noah. “I am already dead,” he said with a shrug, but Ronan shook his head.

“But I mean – for real,” he urged, listening to the footsteps below. Suddenly he felt trapped again, like in a nightmare, where everything he touched turned to ash or dust, or dead hornets. “Did you know he was going to die, from the very beginning?”

“Yes,” Noah said, fading away, though he didn’t indicate which question he answered to. There was a small grimace on his face, as if he wanted to smile, or maybe cry, but not quite remembered how. “I died because of him already.”

Which, Ronan realised after a heartbeat, didn’t have to mean that it had already happenned.

 _I am going to ask for Gansey’s life as a favour from Glendower_ , Adam had said. Gansey, he knew, was going to ask for Noah’s. But what he was going to ask, Ronan thought bitterly, escaped even the power of the sleeping king or the magical wood. There was no one who could grant his wish – or rather, who would.

“Just tell me what to do,” he asked, even though he didn’t dare to hope, not really, that his voice would be heard.

*

Cabeswater was calling him.

Adam jerked up awake and hissed at the sound of ringing in his bad ear. It wasn’t a good sign, the ringing – it meant a day of losing balance and feeling constantly sick. Very slowly he sat up and looked at the small greyish rectangle of his window. It definitely was awfully early in the morning, but Cabeswater’s pull was relentless, dizzying.

Ronan must have been doing something absurdly stupid this very moment.

Adam pulled himself up and groped his way to the bathroom to scry and check up on him, but he lost his balance and kicked one of his boxes in the process. Something warm and rough hit his bare foot; Persephone’s tarot deck. Despite the early hour, Adam felt a rush of energy filling his veins and hitting his nerves; his fingers, suddenly clumsy and trembling, barely managed to open the cover and find the lamp switch. _I am steady_ , he said to himself and to the cards, knocking at them and shuffling them, and holding them close to his heart. They felt as if they belonged there, as if they wanted to talk to him at least. _Just let me know what he should do_.

Without looking he drew three cards, and even though he knew what would happen, their familiar faces still made his insides tug painfully. The Nine of Swords, the Hermit, the Seven of Wands reversed. But this time the deck was welcoming and warm, as if it were alive again. With a start Adam realised that it was the first time he felt this sensation after Persephone’s death. He closed his eyes, suddenly overwhelmed by an emotion he couldn’t name, and wouldn’t dissect into smaller parts for the fear of losing it; most of it was probably relief, though. _I am steady_ , he repeated under his breath. “Tell me, what do I do to help him,” he asked and drew the fourth card.

The Star.

The cards in front of his eyes started to blur and ripple, and Adam blinked several times and grasped the table, preparing for a nausea attack. But nothing like that happened. Instead, when he looked at the cards again, he saw another story entirely. Nightmares, yes, but brought by self-inflicted fear. Focus and contemplation in place of loneliness. Fighting to the bitter end to protect the ones held dear. And – finally – healing, transformation, and faith. Now, when he looked at them in the yellowish light of the lamp, Adam couldn’t recognise Ronan in any of the three cards he’d drawn first, but the dark, sharp-lined figure kneeling at the bank of the pond looked entirely like him. There even was a tiny black bird watching over the Star from the background. Adam felt a wave of relief inside him, bubbling and surging in a fit of hysterical laugh.

He wiped his eyes, pulled on his jeans, and went down the stairs on his somewhat shaky legs. His whole body was still trembling slightly inside, but he was steady. He didn’t need to spare a glance at the parking lot to know that the grey BMW was there. Ronan was there too, barely visible in the dark interior, and so still that he was hard to look at. Adam watched him for a moment nevertheless, but this time he didn’t wait. With a deep calming breath he went up and touched Ronan’s shoulder, just where he knew that the tattooed lines curved into claws.

“Jesus Christ – Parrish…!”

He wasn’t happy to see Adam there; he was startled but Adam could read anger building up slowly in him in the set of his shoulders. “You don’t have to do this on your own,” he whispered quickly, urgently, before it blew into a white-hot rage.

“What?!”

“Matthew, his soul. You don’t have to – it is not your thing to do.”

“Don’t you dare,” Ronan hissed, rising from the pew. There was some surreal quality to him, as if he turned into one of his nightmares, but Adam didn’t step back. “I swear–”

“You said it yourself, you’re not God to create a soul,” he interrupted, talking quickly, vehemently. He looked up where Ronan’s eyes should be, but couldn’t see a glimpse of them. “You must let Him do this, then. No, listen, Ronan–” He paused, breathing heavily; his body was betraying him, weak and swaying, but he was steady. Ronan moved back and didn’t interrupt him, so he forced himself to continue. “If the God you believe in is mercy and love, do you think He wouldn’t give Matthew a soul? Matthew, of all people? Can you honestly believe it?”

“No.” It was barely audible over the rattling of Adam’s heart and the ringing in his ear. He felt a movement though as Ronan dropped on the pew again. “No, He wouldn’t. But–”

“Then you must have faith,” Adam urged, thinking on the Star and its bright shine. It didn’t cancel the nightmares and battles which awaited Ronan – or both of them, really – but it promised more than Adam dared to hope for. “That is all you can do, and all you need to do.”

There was no reply, but after a moment Adam heard a shuffle and Ronan’s silhouette sunk deeper into the darkness of the pew. He perched on the seat and listened to Ronan’s breathing. Somehow he was sure that he covered his face with his palms again; the nightmares and fears were definitely not over yet.

“My prayers are not worthy of a fucking miracle,” he whispered finally, voice hoarse, challenging.

“It is not for you to judge.” And then, because darkness, relief, and hope made him feel very brave, Adam reached up blindly, grabbed Ronan’s wrist where the leather bands covered his scars, and forced it down to the Bible slot. “Have faith,” he repeated, feeling the quickened pulse under his fingers.

Ronan didn’t reply or protest; he didn’t move his hand away either. After a long while – much longer than Adam would like it to be – he let out a quiet, shuddering breath and relaxed against the back of the pew, taking his other hand away from his eyes. He watched Ronan’s face becoming more and more sharp as the sky was greying, but there was no fear in his eyes, no despair in the set of his mouth.

“And you said I didn’t need you with me.”

This came as a surprise, hitting Adam unprepared, with all his guards down. Ronan still wasn’t looking at him, and he was still looking at his fingers circled around Ronan’s wrist. He didn’t have a good reply to this; he doubted he would ever have.

“I would like to be the thing you need,” he said, because it was the only truth he could offer, both to Ronan and to himself. “But I don’t know how.”

With a start, Ronan turned to look at him, his eyes squinted and searching. After a heartbeat he smiled, open and wild and inexorable like a forest fire, and grabbed Adam’s wrist with his other hand.

“Have faith,” he echoed, grinning, as if it wasn’t the single most challenging thing anyone ever asked Adam to do. Adam felt the smile burn through his skin to his meat and bones, make his heart jolt, open him to expose his broken, flawed core. And yet Ronan was looking into it without hesitation; it made him feel unreservedly wanted and almost fearless. “Adam?”

“I want to – I will,” he said, and meant it.

Maybe they weren’t a lost cause, after all.


End file.
